Leadership

Note: This page was updated due to a YouTube problem that stalled the video after 15sec. The issue has been resolved!

Here’s something that has had a huge impact on my motivation and updated my business education at the same time.

What are you listening during your drive time?

David Bryant Mitchell is a professional keynote speaker and the author of the book Building Your Booming Business. He is also an executive business coach and consultant that works with business owners and managers to create momentum in their business with strategies and tactics that they can implement today. These strategies are based on the five foundations of business: Marketing, Leadership, Operations, Finance and Systems.

I had a lot of fun on this interview…..caution, I had technical difficulties on my end at about 17:12, but check out how I worked around it and was able to get back on the call by 18:34….

Here is what Ivana Taylor says about the book:

“For years, David Mitchell has been coaching businesses and business leaders to success by helping them build the tools and processes they need to make a business successful.

He knows the secrets for why businesses succeed, why customers stay loyal or leave, and how to be an effective business leader.

Unfortunately, it would be impossible for him to coach every business, so now he has written Building Your Booming Business to share the main strategies businesses need if they want to get ahead and stay there in a competitive marketplace. And surprisingly, it’s not all about profit or even having a better product.”

We talk about the 5 Foundations every business needs to be successful. I also give a couple of influential books that I’ve read that’s helped me sculpt my personal foundations. We also discuss step-by-step business strategies and advice that will not only take your business to the top, but will help you systemize your business, build an effective team, provide high quality customer experiences, and drive more sales. The goal of the book is alleviate the consequences that come with unmotivated employees, escalating business issues, and an overworked schedule.

A business is nothing more than a system of systems that creates value. And every business needs five basic systems, which I call the Five Foundations of Business:

Discover the five foundations your organization needs to succeed.

Marketing—Finding the quickest path to the sale.

Management/Leadership—Identifying the destination, developing the path, and creating a team to accomplish it.

Operations—Delivering the service.

Finance—Managing the value created through superior marketing and operations.

Systems/Controls—The grease and glue that keeps the other four Foundations moving smoothly and holds them together.

Getting these systems to work for you as efficiently as possible is the essence of creating a successful business. Once you have created and fine-tuned the systems, it becomes much easier to sell your product, create viral word-of-mouth, hire employees, lead and manage them, expand into new markets and additional sites, and to franchise. Plus, life is easier and more enjoyable when your business generates income for you and your lifestyle. Finally, the systems make it possible for you to create a business worth selling when you’re ready to retire or move on to your next venture. Of course, within those categories, how the specific systems that create widgets, tools, knick-knacks, food, services, or experiences will work depends entirely on you as the business owner.

If you decide to read Building Your Booming Business, take the time to review your systems. Where is the hand-off from one system to the next? What systems are missing or not performing as well as they could within each of these “Business Foundations?”

Why should you trust me? What makes the material in Building Your Booming Business worth the time to read and implement?

I have always had an entrepreneurial bent. At eleven years old, I used the drawing program on my dad’s IBM 286 to make a half-page flyer advertising that I was available to do a variety of odd jobs. Then I distributed about 100 of them throughout my neighborhood. I had a few calls over the next couple of weeks to mow lawns, babysit kids, and a number of similar tasks. Within a couple of weeks, I was bringing home about $150 a week. A year later, one of my customers, who was the general manager for a local lumberyard, asked me to give him a bid for regularly mowing about two acres of grass around the business. Once I sealed that deal, I was bringing in an additional $120 every ten days. In 1989, that was a lot of money, especially for a twelve-year-old. Don’t worry; I spent most of it irresponsibly.

Since then, I have run business organizations as large as 200 employees, increased revenues by 40 percent in less than three months, and have battled almost every operational obstacle imaginable. I even had to pull a department out of a financial disaster.

More importantly, I have successfully coached scores of other entrepreneurs, managers, and owners on how to be successful doing the same things I have done. Many of them have more than doubled the sizes and profits of their businesses, created more time for themselves, and even sold their businesses for profit.

Why would what I have to share in this book work for you? You’ve probably tried training programs and systems before. You’ve tried seminars, books, coaching, and spent lots of time trying to get your business to break barriers.

The reason I know that what I have to share can help you take your business to the next level is that I have actually implemented, either in my own business or in the businesses of my clients, every concept in this book, and I have seen great successes as a result. Even if you only use one of the strategies I offer, you can move your business forward, or you can apply all of them to make your business boom.

Teams move through recognizable stages: Forming, Norming, Storming, and Performing. Volumes of research have been done on these stages and how to manage them. Let’s take a look at some of the basics.

Each stage has its own characteristics and dynamics. Leading them through these stages quickly can determine whether your team will succeed or fall apart.

Forming: Participants have high energy and are excited to get started, but they have little direction or knowledge in the challenges they face. A leader at this stage will mostly need to use the directive style of leadership.

Storming: As it develops, your team will move into the Storming stage. Members will vie for position and try to define their role in relation to the rest of the team. At the storming stage, there is still a great deal of energy and enthusiasm. But as the team grows in knowledge and ability, people will begin to overstep each other’s boundaries or leave large gaps in performance. Boundaries and responsibilities are still being defined in this stage as team members start to ask, “Why?” You will need to use more supportive tactics when working with a team in this stage. Many teams never leave this stage and ultimately fail without effective leadership.

Norming: Once the fighting is over, you will see your team begin to “figure it out” or start Norming. They get along better, fewer balls are dropped, and respect for each other’s abilities increases. Their own knowledge and skills are growing, requiring less oversight from you. The downside is that a lot of the team’s energy has been sapped from the storming stage. Some of the conflicts have made team members skeptical. Your team members now need to feel they can self-direct their activities. They still need parameters from you and facilitation to help them work through new problems and help them avoid slipping back into the storming phase. Those skills are the essence of the consultative style of leadership.

Performing: Few teams ever make it to the Performing stage. Most rest comfortably at Norming and flow between the bottom three stages frequently. Teams in the Performing stage have regained the energy they had in the Forming stage, but they can now couple that with a high level of expertise and knowledge. You will see your team start to care more about results and care less about material or emotional incentives. It will also care less about processes and can comfortably suggest better ways to get the work done. This is the moment that every leader wants—give people the tools and get out of their way! When a Performing team reaches this pinnacle, your job as leader is to facilitate resources and focus your leadership on keeping your team members performing.

While most teams never reach the Performing stage, those that do don’t stay there long. They will slip into Norming when energy is lost or frustration with circumstances steps in. They can even drop all the way back to Storming if there is a change in the team’s dynamic, or if a new challenge the members are not prepared to face springs up. If you ever have the chance to lead a Performing team, your job is not done. Keeping the team there can prove difficult.

Team Stage

Forming

Storming

Norming

Performing

Attributes

High Energy/
Low Skill

High Energy/
Growing Skill

Low Energy/
Moderate Skill

High Energy/
High Skill

Needs

Need strong systems and clear direction

Asking “Why?”

Self-directed with clear parameters

Results biggest motivator

Leadership Needed

Micromanager, autocratic, set high expectations

Teacher, Set boundaries, Increasing expectations

Coach, Inspire, “Lead”

Facilitator, Resource, As-Needed clarification, Inspire

Penalties/
Rewards Structure

Clear and Stark Penalties/
Rewards

Clear Penalties/
Rewards

Natural Consequences, Some Leader-Enforced consequences

Few Penalties or Rewards outside of Natural Consequence

Manager Vs. Leader

Manager

↑Manager
↓Leader

↑Leader
↓Manager

Leader

There are three things to keep in mind constantly while leading your team through the stages:

How a team progresses from one stage to another depends entirely on you as a leader. While certain styles are best used in specific stages, you must continually look for ways to present small introductions to the next level. Some of the responsibility lies with the team members themselves. You will see natural leaders arise within the group who can either be your allies or your nemesis.

Team selection is just as important as leadership in a team’s success. For team selection ideas, read Chapter 9: The Miracle Team.

Teams do not move through the stages in a nice, neat line. They will often jump around and surprise you. Your success depends on recognizing the stage and knowing which style is best for the moment.

I am a bit of a sci-fi geek. I cut my sci-fi teeth on Star Trek and enjoyed “The Next Generation” as a teen and young adult. I used to watch Captain Picard as he looked at “Number One” Commander Riker and simply said, “Make it so.” Riker always seemed to make it happen. I thought that was how delegation worked. You gave it to your underling and they made it happen. Problem solved.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.

Because we are giving them the decision-making tools they will need you to follow through, you will also need to walk your team through the process over and over again. Every time you give your team a new challenge, you are forcing them into a Storming stage and they will need your management and leadership much more intensely than before.

As you teach them to manage themselves, they will need you in every meeting. You will need to direct the conversation and encourage some people’s involvement. It will require your follow-through and attention to detail. After a while, you can then begin to ease out of the manager role, move into a leader roll, and finally into empowerment when you can tell your team “make it so” and all you need back is a report on what will be changing.

Why go through the trouble?

It’s going to be tough. Remember the reasons why you need to delegate more:

Better fulfill your company’s vision

Give your customers a better experience and a deeper relationship with you and your product

Provide your team with a better environment in which to work while eliminating their frustrations

Grow your profits to better support the causes and passion you have

Free you as the leader to live the life you want and reduce the fires you have to squelch on a continual basis.

It’s going to get tough. You’ll lose team members, have strong conflicts with others, and still come out a better team, business, and leader.

I seem to be getting popular these days. Last week, Jim Nemley interviewed me about how a business mastermind SHOULD work. We talked about accountability, openness, confidentiality and that a mastermind is not a networking group or a social outlet.

Check it out below:

Check Out Business Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Jim Nemley on BlogTalkRadio

I was recently interviewed on a podcast (online radio show) and wanted to share this with you on my website. You can listen to the podcast below or read the transcript.

——–

When you run a business there is never a shortage of things that need to get done. But if you have systems and processes in place for how you do things, then you can automate and delegate large portions of your business responsibilities so you can focus on work that will truly have an impact.

Today we’re speaking with Dave Mitchell about how to build systems and processes that you can use to grow your business. Dave works with business leaders to create momentum in their business by focusing on the 5 Foundations of Business, which he’ll share more about in the interview below.